


Sugar

by Mosca



Series: SugarVerse [2]
Category: Figure Skating RPF
Genre: Bisexuality, F/M, Food Kink, Hotel Sex, M/M, Queer Het, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-11
Updated: 2014-07-11
Packaged: 2018-02-08 10:38:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,268
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1937736
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mosca/pseuds/Mosca
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There is a cure for everything, and he is a sexually ambiguous Frenchman.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sugar

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to [Sandyk](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Sandyk) and Vassilissa for beta reading and Agua21 for help with French. The title is from a Tori Amos B-side. The section headers are from the following songs from Tori Amos's album _To Venus and Back_ : "Suede," "Glory of the 80s," "Concertina," "Bliss," and "Lust."
> 
> I originally posted this fic to my Livejournal in June 2007.

**1\. swallow her whole star intact**

The 2007 men's world figure skating champion has Tanith flat on her back on the hard, narrow Japanese hotel bed. She's got her hands on his ass to tilt him forward and pull him deeper into her, and also because he has a great ass. Her boyfriend is not as much with the butt. She is trying not to think of Evan, but really, this is inviting comparisons, and it's looking like Worlds is not the only competition that Brian is going to win this week. 

"What are you thinking?" he says.

"It's cold," she says, because that's not irrelevant and she's worried that "your dick is bigger than my boyfriend's" might be taken the wrong way. He's got all the windows open.

Without pulling out of her, he lowers his body flat on top of her, covering her with his weight but more with his sticky, heat-radiating skin. "Better?" he says.

"I'll come harder with you like you were before," she says. 

"Well," he says. "That's more important." He lingers with his face close to hers like he's thinking about kissing her, but he changes his mind and traces her lips with his fingers. He hasn't kissed her all night. "Don't think," he says. He rocks himself up into his previous position, and she gasps when he hits that good angle. She digs her French manicure into the hard flesh of his ass and there's nothing to think about. She arches her hips up into him because he's hard for her and in her and she's close, close to breaking, her legs open and full of him. Her orgasm shivers her long before he's done. She pulls him into her to keep it rising, throwing her mouth open until he comes.

He's taking off the condom, and she's realigning her back so she can get out of the uncomfortable bed and put her clothes back on. She's thinking of Evan again and how making it official might have been the kiss of death, and she needs to get out of there so she can nurse her guilt properly. 

"You're having regrets?" he says. Uncanny. Or possibly a human being and not a jumping/fucking machine to an extent she hadn't given him credit for. 

"I shouldn't have done this," she says. 

"But you did it," he says. 

"You shouldn't have asked," she says. "You knew, I mean, you knew I wasn't available."

"You have a boyfriend," he says. "That's different than available, not available. I ask, someone says no thank you, I ask someone else. It's not a bother."

She wonders who would have the willpower to turn him down, with the lost-little-boy green eyes and the pretty smile and every inch of him ripped and sculpted like there are hours of his day he spends on muscles he doesn't need. And the skill or the talent to back it up. "So I'll... see you the day after tomorrow," she says, fastening her bra. "At the gala."

"You won't be at the banquet?" he says.

 _Yes, but I'll be avoiding you at the banquet,_ she doesn't say. "Oh, right. I forgot." She's most of the way dressed -- good at quick costume changes -- but she's over here and the door's over there and somehow, the two aren't getting closer. She can feel the ghost of him inside her, the stretch of muscle and the bright knot of fading pleasure where his dick pressed at every thrust. She puts her hands on her hips like that knot might fall out from between them.

She could shove him up against the wall and have her way with him. He would think it was hot. She can tell by the tilt of his head how he sees her now: another damn girl who has sex and then is ashamed of it, who's into it until she remembers she's not supposed to be. She wants him to respect her. She wants to be memorable. She pulls her top over her head and lets it slide down over her hair to the floor. 

"What are you doing?" Brian says.

"Do you have another round in you?" she says.

He mouths her words, translating. "I don't understand," he says.

Especially in high heels she is fast on her feet, and the image in her mind of a hot French boy with his back against the wall becomes her reality. He's still naked; he made no effort to get dressed when she did. She licks the salty skin of his chest, the curve of muscle below her hand pinning him. His chest is shaved, and the invisible returning hairs prickle her tongue. She bites his stomach, and the tight flesh beneath barely gives. She bites again, harder, and he makes a short, low sound with his mouth closed. She maps a constellation of bite marks that will disappear as soon as she ignores them. She wants to go down on him but she doesn't want to take her hands off of him, and she's not having a dirty, immoral one-night stand without protection. 

He reads her mind. "Let me go," he says. "I promise you will have me back." It's not like he couldn't have fended her off anyway. She trails her hand down from his chest to just above his dick, and he follows it with his eyes. She lifts her hand away and, as naturally as if he weren't crossing the room naked with a hard-on, he goes over to the nightstand and opens up the box of condoms he has sitting there. "Is cherry okay?" he says.

The question throws her for a moment, but yes, cherry is fine. He rolls it onto his own dick and reassumes the position he'd abandoned. The condom tastes like tilting your head back and eating Kool-Aid mix straight out of the packet. She starts slow, taking just the tip of his dick in her mouth. He fills his fists with her hair. He's not the kind of guy who pushes a girl's head down onto his dick or thrusts hard into her mouth. He's probably, definitely, given a few of these himself, she remembers. He lets her do the work, and it's work she's good at, a thing she can take some pride in. How to get a guy off with her mouth and not make him wish he were fucking her instead. 

The problem with him is, he's got restraint, so he's holding his orgasm back so he can enjoy it longer. She can feel how hard he is; she knows the difference. He seems to like those jolts of pain: her teeth, her nails. She claws the inside of his thigh and he loses control. 

He slides out from between her and the wall, tying up the condom, stretching his arms over his head. He's hunched over the nightstand, using nail scissors to do violence to another prophylactic, and from the shape of things he's going to want her on her back. He seems like the kind of guy who knows exactly where the clitoris is located. She takes off her bra and her jeans, but she decides she's more interesting in her thong and her shoes. A little bit centerfold. She thinks Brian's the kind who would appreciate that.

"I like your hair like this," he says, working away over there. "The red-brown."

"We thought it suited the free dance better," she says. "I'm going right back to the blonde as soon as I get home."

"I hope you do not," he says. "The blonde, it is... ordinary. This brown is more exotic, it makes you seem unusual."

Evan hates the brown. He's found a way to complain about it every day since they got to Tokyo. "I'll keep that in mind," she says.

"It's the first time I've noticed you," he says. "With brown hair." He comes back with his flattened-out condom art and a bottle of lube. He sets the bottle beside her hip and lays the cool rubber on her stomach. He grazes her neck with his teeth, sucks on the delicate skin but not hard enough to leave a mark. She writhes, not needing this, but grateful for the gesture. He goes for her breasts next, but her cracked rib is still sore enough to make that less than sexy, so she pushes his head down. Her clit's an easy sell, and she doesn't want to get so close that she won't be able to see what he's made of.

Brian hooks a finger in the waistband of her thong and pulls it down, kissing the soft skin he's revealed. A fresh Brazilian for Worlds, it's a ritual good luck thing. She took Meryl and Tessa down to the salon with her, not quite convincing them of the importance, but hey, sixth and seventh for them on their first time out, it's got to be doing something. 

And hey, it got her here.

He's rolling her thong down her legs and carefully over her shoes. He kisses her ankle. He's into the shoes.

He licks the inside of her leg in one long stroke from her ankle to the tip of her vulva, and she writhes again. He opens up the lube bottle, and the room smells richly of tropical fruit. "Hmm, why didn't I get that?" she says.

"I forgot that I bring it," he says. "Here." He squeezes a drop onto his fingertip and dabs her tongue with it. She smiles and sucks on his finger.

He rocks back on his knees and spreads her legs apart, then fills his hands with lube and rubs them together to warm it. It's sticky-soft and warm on her clit and she tries to hold off but it's hard to keep her hips still when she's been waiting this long. She grinds into his fingers and works herself into a little warm-up orgasm. "Already?" he says.

"Oh, it's not like I'm done," she says.

He squints at her and sticks out his lower lip, considering her. "Really," he says.

"Not even close."

"How long can you go?" he says.

"Longer than you can."

"Are you sure of that?" he says.

"I wear boys out, baby."

He says, "Is that a challenge?"

"You bet it is, Mr. World Champion."

He lifts the flattened condom from her stomach and smoothes it between her labia. The combination of nature and the fruity lube makes it cling pretty close, and she can feel his tongue almost like there's nothing between them. It takes him a minute to figure her out, but once he's got her, she's gone. She comes and breathes and rises up and comes again, her hips doing almost as much work as his jaw. She's hoarse and sweaty, and she's seeing white light in the corners of her eyes. All of those things are begging her to stop, but he really does have stamina and it's not like she's getting tired of the ecstasy of build and release. 

She's stopped counting by the time he raises his head. "Are you tapped out?" she says, but he doesn't answer. He peels the condom off of her and shoots it into the wastebasket, and then he leans across her to get a fresh, unaltered one out of his stash. He puts it on himself, deliberately enough to give her the chance to ask him not to before he pushes himself into her. She's too worn out to come hard anymore, but he's so big and so skilled and he totally remembers where she put him the last time, and it's a nice, slow, easy ending.

She thinks her legs are going to be made of pudding, but they hold her up as well as ever. She still has her shoes on -- all ready to go. She gathers her clothes together and drops them on the bed so she can shake the twists out of her thong. "I really have to go this time," she says. "I -- I can't stay the night here."

"I didn't expect you to stay," he says. He's sitting on the side of the bed with his back to her and his hands behind his head, his muscles stacked on top of each other like a wall of round stones.

"But it was fun," she says. "It was good. It was really good."

"For me too," he says. He pauses, building the tension or forgetting his English. "I won't tell your... boyfriend."

"Thanks," she says.

"I haven't been with him," Brian says. 

"I was wondering," she says.

"Would you let him?" Brian says. "If, for example. If I ask him tomorrow, would you let him?"

"I don't think I have any right to stop him now," she says.

"I'm not going to," Brian says. "I don't know the reason, but I have never found him interesting."

She puts the rest of her clothes on and leaves, never having said good night, never having kissed him.

**2\. who do I gotta shag to get outta here?**

This is the third consecutive mandatory semi-formal event where Ben's wound up sneaking into a corner of the room with Charlie to avoid socializing with people he's tired of. As at the team meeting, Johnny Weir has managed to sneak into the corner with them, which is actually not a bad thing, since Weir is funny and not seventeen years old and in surprisingly good spirits for a guy who just came in eighth after being in medal contention. In fact, there are two main differences between this and all previous boring events. One, it is officially the off-season, so they are actually eating the hors d'oeuvres, which are mostly sushi and meat on sticks and therefore worth it. Two, the suits that looked so sharp on Monday have lost their snap. Except for Johnny's: fashion victim brought a spare. Every year, Ben packs two, and then there's not enough room in his garment bag with all the costumes and crap. So every year, Ben looks like pure sex at the team meeting but walks into the closing banquet looking like he had to stop and fight a horde of trolls on the way in. Possibly, he could learn how to iron before next year.

"So, I swear, there's like three dozen of them," Charlie is saying. "Just sitting there in the lobby. And Meryl and I come down in the elevator and it's like that Beatles movie, there's this hotel employee and she's whisking us to the van and we're like, 'No, we'll sign autographs. For half an hour. Miss our practice? Sure.'"

"Welcome to the big time," Ben says, punching him in the arm.

"Yeah, today they're mobbing you in the hotel, tomorrow they're hacking into your MySpace," Johnny says with a laugh.

"Someone hacked into your MySpace?" Charlie says.

"Yeah, they put up all this gay porn," Johnny says. "It was kind of hilarious. It's almost too bad I had to take it down."

Sensing mirth, the USFSA website photographer intrudes on their corner. "Hey, smile," she says. "No, wait, don't pose, that's too much like the one from Monday. Just keep talking, we'll get a candid." 

Well, they can't keep talking about porn on MySpace, and they all realize this at once and crack up, and that's the picture she gets, the three of them doubled over laughing. Ben actually laughs until his back goes halfway out. Charlie puts his hand between Ben's shoulder blades to help him straighten up, and Ben's mind keeps repeating, "gay porn, gay porn," and he laughs harder, and the photographer is staring at them sternly. She says, "Seriously, you guys should probably disperse. Big Brother doesn't love it when groups of male skaters looks like they're throwing their own party."

Johnny scowls, but she's right. Ben grabs Charlie by the arm before he runs off. "Catch up with me at the Team USA afterparty," he says. "I'll buy you a weak Japanese beer."

"I'm not legal," Charlie says.

Sometimes Ben forgets how young Charlie is. "It's not eighteen here?"

"Twenty," Charlie says.

"Damn," Ben says. "But you know what we _could_ do? Karaoke box. We can get a bunch of people together, sometimes they'll let you stay all night if it's a big group."

"I'll get the word out," Charlie says, and they part ways.

Ben is walking aimlessly through the room in his dirty suit, his empty appetizer plate dangling from between his fingers, probably dripping sauce into the carpet. He doesn't see anyone he wants to talk to; he doesn't see anyone he wants to _know_. Tanith is off somewhere with Evan, possibly being sociable, possibly making out, possibly having a serious conversation, although he doubts it's the serious conversation they need to have. The two of them haven't been together that long, and already she's succumbing to temptation, already she's telling lies. She's going to break Evan's heart, and Ben is going to have to watch. Worse, he's probably going to end up sympathizing, because whenever Tanith does something cruel and despicable, she makes it sound so reasonable. Like anyone with an ounce of sense would be as ruthless as she is. 

He meanders casually in the direction of the table with the meat on sticks. Unlike the other men in the room, he is allowed to remain in their presence for longer than six seconds. Unlike the other ice dancers in the room, who either resent being beaten out for bronze or resent being beaten in the original dance, they are not avoiding him. Meat on sticks: the ideal cocktail party companion. 

Now that he looks like he has a mission and not a dark cloud of resentment, people stop him to say hi and congratulate him. That sweet Slovakian men's skater, the female half of the Ukrainian pairs team, the Japanese girl who is neither Mao Asada nor Miki Ando. People are nice enough in this sport if you don't hang around long enough to look them in the eyes. So he keeps moving.

He brushes past Brian Joubert's shoulder and smiles, thinking, Big Brother surely won't approve of that. "Congratulations on the win," Ben says, looking towards the hors d'oeuvres table.

"To you too," Brian says. "On the podium."

"Thanks," Ben says.

"So," Brian says. He brushes Ben's arm again, more purposefully.

Ben takes a reflexive step back, and then he takes the compliment with a shy smile. "Sorry, man," he says. "I've got a girlfriend."

Brian clasps his hands behind his back and purses his lips, playing innocent or contemplating his next move. 

"Or was I supposed to infer something else from that?" Ben says. "Sometimes the signals, you know." He sweeps his hand an inch above his head and whistles.

"It didn't bother your partner so much," Brian says. "To have someone else."

"Yeah, but different situations there," Ben says. He's not married in the literal sense, the one with the legal documents and the ring and the kitchen appliances gathering dust. He's trying to remember if they're still saying they plan to wait until he retires, or if they've completely given over to making the joke about emulating Brangelina and not getting married until gays can. But he is married in the emotional sense, in the sense of mating for life, in the sense of figuring it out when things get difficult instead of giving it up to an admittedly _very_ smooth French guy in a hotel room the night after the free dance. "Did you think she wouldn't tell me?"

"I didn't know if she would tell," Brian says. "I don't know about your, your relationship."

"We're pretty close," Ben says. Close enough that she banged on his door last night at one in the morning, ran into his room and punched his bed, saying, _Shit, shit, shit, I just did the stupidest thing, don't tell Evan, don't tell Merrie, don't tell anyone_. He'd sat for half an hour with her head on his shoulder, stroking her hair, telling her she couldn't undo it but she could put it behind her, that fucking up was the way of the human animal. What he really thought was, if she was uncertain enough to cheat, she needed to figure out what was going on with her and Evan. But she wouldn't want to know what he really thought.

"I see," Brian says.

"No, man, I get it," Ben says. "You had to try."

"It doesn't have to do with that," Brian says. "It is, it was the answer that I expected, but it wasn't the reason."

"Oh," Ben says, careful to keep his voice low. "You wanted me to be all, 'I'm not gay, get out of my face'?"

"It's how the straight men react, mostly," Brian says.

"Yeah, and that's a world of embarrassing for those of us who actually _are_ comfortable with our sexuality," Ben says.

Brian inserts another uncomfortable pause into the conversation. Plotting again. "So," he says. "There is nothing between you and the other American ice dancer? White. I'm forgetting his other name."

"Charlie," Ben says. "And I told you. I have a girlfriend."

"I understand," Brian says. He offers the false smile of someone who's decided he doesn't like you. "Enjoy your evening." He walks away, hands still behind his back, off to conquer a more certain second choice.

Ben scans the room for Charlie, even though it's much more clear now that they have to keep a distance between them, at least at official events. The answer he gave Brian was the true one, both times: he loves Merrie, and he's loyal to her. He believes that any complication is less powerful and less resilient than his love for her, because for eight years, that's been true. Charlie is a great guy, quick-witted and fiercely smart but in a laid-back way. They see each other all the time; they've always gotten along. They're friends. Most of Igor and Marina's students are friends. 

That's not what everybody sees. Tanith calls Charlie "mini-Ben" or accuses him of being Ben's loyal minion; Evan makes jokes about their bro-mance. This is the first time anyone's outright accused them of carrying on an affair, but it's hard to hear gossip about yourself, especially when most of that gossip is taking place in languages you don't speak. And why aren't they, really? Why hasn't he even thought about it? Charlie's a good-looking guy, and in an almost feminine way, all long eyelashes and floppy hair and Justin Timberlake smile. Ben can, now that he's let himself enter the frame of mind for it, almost imagine touching him. And it's new to him, strange to admit that the idea is alluring. He's straight, and that's not a straight thought. He wonders what that makes him.

He decides that it makes him a guy with a girlfriend.

**3\. you're the fiercest calm I've been in**

"Want to?" Brian says, brushing Johnny's hip with his arm like it's an accident. Not the casual "Wanna" that any native speaker would default to, but two precise plosive consonants separated by a fraction of a breath. Johnny, who's been trying to infiltrate a conversation between Oksana Domnina and Tatiana Volosozhar of the impenetrable Ukrainian accent, turns on his heel. He follows the back of Brian's head with his eyes until Brian feels his gaze, pauses, and cocks a seductive half-smile. Johnny bats his eyes. He knows better than to expect this, but he's been looking forward to it anyway. They've skipped a couple of years along the way -- 2003, when Johnny didn't skate internationally; 2005, when Johnny was reserving his ass for magical fairy tale boyfriend sex -- but it's stopped being coincidence and fallen into the realm of moveable feast.

Johnny's mom, still jet-lagged, is already in bed, and Priscilla can take care of herself. He shouldn't miss the Team USA afterparty or the cool-kids-only after-afterparty that Ben and his un-boyfriend seem to be cooking up. But he'd rather have sex, and his downfall has always been overthinking.

So he follows. Not asking questions, not making jokes, trying to remember the lyrics to the elevator music instead of wondering who Brian's first choice was. Johnny's never been Brian's first choice. He's the fallback, the alternate.

Brian puts the "do not disturb" sign on the door and double-locks them inside. He opens all the windows and starts taking his clothes off as matter-of-factly as if he were putting on skates. Johnny undresses carefully -- this suit is as yet unruined -- and lays each article of clothing across Brian's empty suitcase. The open window is pulling in a breeze. Johnny folds his arms and rubs them to keep from shivering. 

Brian comes over to him and runs his hands over his arms, down his sides, over his butt and up his back. Their faces are close together, but Brian doesn't kiss him. Brian doesn't kiss, period. Brian says, "Will you go on top for me?"

Johnny relaxes his arms and puts his hands on Brian's hips. "If that's what you want."

"It's what I am thinking about all day," Brian says. "A man on top of me."

Johnny can't keep himself from scoffing. He can't put his finger on why it sounds like a lie. "And yet you asked _me_ ," he says.

"You're a man," Brian says. He brushes Johnny's dick with his hand.

"Yeah," Johnny says. "But."

"Yeah, but, what?" Brian says. 

"You want to bottom, and your thoughts turn to me," Johnny says. "That's cute."

Brian shrugs. "You're good at everything." Johnny's not sure what's given him that impression. It makes him more anxious about letting Brian down.

Brian takes a couple of steps backward and flops onto the bed hard enough to make it creak angrily. His enthusiasm is infectious, and Johnny bounces onto his hands and knees, leaning over Brian. Brian smiles, and it's the second almost-kiss of the night. As if he's caught himself in the moment of weakness, Brian slides out from under Johnny and grabs a couple of things from the nightstand: lube, a condom, a wad of Kleenex that he uses to wipe his hands dry. He rolls Johnny onto his back. Then, he fills his clean hands with lube and goes to work on Johnny's dick, efficiently but attentively getting him hard. It's more like a massage than a hand job, which is a weird but welcome accomplishment. Johnny closes his eyes and enjoys it as if Brian were digging his skilled fingers into his back or the arches of his feet. 

"You're going to come too soon," Brian says in French just as Johnny is thinking the same thing in English. While Brian kneels and wipes his hands clean again, Johnny gets up onto his knees behind him and finds the lube bottle nestled in the wrinkles of the featherbed. As soon as Brian's tossed the Kleenex into the trash can, Johnny pushes him down onto his hands and knees and starts working lubed fingers into his ass. Brian purrs and clutches the featherbed. He's not as tight as Johnny imagined he would be, but that means Johnny can be fast about getting the condom on and getting his dick in there. And not fast enough, from the depth of Brian's moan.

Brian is a good bottom, the kind who knows it's not about just lying there and being fucked. He's resisting back against Johnny's dick and moving with Johnny's hips, and the whole time he's like, "Harder, harder," no matter how hard Johnny drives into him, and by the time he's had the English fucked out of him and switched to " _Plus fort, plus fort_ " it's pretty clear that's not what he's asking for. Johnny's long-deprived body wants to give it to him until it hurts. With this permission to abandon himself, he gets lost in taking care of himself, in the force of coming.

Johnny gets up off of him and throws away the condom. Brian is wiping himself off and scanning the bed like he's lost something. "I can't find the, um, the wet place?" he says.

"Oh, well, you'll have a surprise later," Johnny says.

"But it's disgusting to leave it," Brian says. He looks flustered and vulnerable, in need of some sweet distraction. Johnny sits down in front of him (no wet spot there) and for a moment that is just long enough, forgets that Brian doesn't like to be kissed. The next moment reminds him that this is not all about Brian, and he decides, it's just a kiss and Brian can stop him if he wants to. 

But Brian presses up against him, holds him with a tenderness that seems impossible, kisses with a softness that is almost feminine. Johnny has to hold back his own natural aggressiveness, the way he's learned to kiss boys so they don't swallow him whole. He caresses the back of Brian's neck, and the muscles are tight with apprehension. Johnny strokes Brian's jaw to get him to release, to get him to open his mouth. Brian hums into Johnny's tongue and he tastes sweet, a mouthful of ISU banquet sparkling wine.

Brian tumbles forward, probably on purpose, and all of his upper body weight is on Johnny but in a nice way, a warm way. Johnny is getting hard from kissing, just from kissing, and okay also a little groping but really, it's the kisses that are doing it for him. Every other part of Brian, he's had before. 

Brian's hand travels purposefully down toward Johnny's dick. "What do you want?" he says.

"I'm doing what I want," Johnny says. He pulls Brian's head down and tries to catch his lips again, but Brian turns his head away. "Fine," Johnny says. "Then we won't."

"I'm tired of it," Brian says.

Johnny can't tell if he's being mean or if it's a language error. "Later?"

Brian kisses his lips quickly. "Mmm." And another kiss, quick like that. "I think yes." He kisses Johnny's chin and his Adam's apple, then keeps going down the midline of Johnny's body in a loose trail of kisses like stepping stones. He slows down when he reaches Johnny's navel and draws a slow line with his tongue down to the base of Johnny's dick, around and under to Johnny's balls. And then, with swift ease, drops of lube into a condom, the condom onto Johnny, and Brian's mouth over that. Brian's blow jobs are as improbable and beautiful as his quad toe loops. Johnny has yet to figure out what his trick is, but he knows to lie with his back arched and his eyes squeezed shut, to rejoice in what he's given.

Brian is so good with his tongue that coming is almost a disappointment. Johnny disposes of his second condom of the night, looking over his shoulder, wondering when Brian's going to get around to dismissing him. He's been there over an hour. This is not Brian-like behavior.

"Okay," Brian says. "Now it's certainly your turn."

"I get another turn?" Johnny says, climbing back onto the bed.

"You don't want one?" Brian says. He runs his finger down the bridge of Johnny's nose. "Maybe you are too tired?"

"You've got to admit it's not a fair question to ask a guy who's just gotten off twice," Johnny says.

"So it's only about your dick?" Brian says. "I didn't think you were like that."

"I'm not usually," Johnny says. Maybe he does need a minute. Maybe he needs a year. He lies down, not letting himself leave.

Brian lies half on top of him, their chests overlapping and their lips close. "Do you like me?" Brian says.

"What?"

"Do you -- did I say it wrong?" Brian says. " _Est ce que tu m'aimes?_ Do you like me. That's right, isn't it?"

"No, it's that -- you mean, _physiquement? ou..._ "

"It's all right," Brian says. "I have the answer. You don't."

"I didn't say anything," Johnny says.

"That's it," Brian says. He pauses and switches back to French. "If you liked me, you'd say, oh, of course I do, you're wonderful and fantastic. But instead, you --"

"No, I will say that if, um, if I do not like you," Johnny says. His French is a slow, sticky mess, a wet spot in a hard bed. 

"But you don't," Brian says. "I can see you don't."

"I am... deciding," Johnny says.

"You should do it before you lose a turn," Brian says.

Johnny breathes deeply and switches back to English. "Why don't you put that big thing in me," he says. "Give me some time to think." Brian sticks his tongue in Johnny's mouth, giving him the kind of hard, deep kiss he was withholding before. At first, Johnny thinks Brian has misunderstood, but no, he's trying to be cute. About a second after Johnny starts to kiss back, Brian rolls him over onto his stomach. Brian leaves him there to wait while he gets his supplies together, but it's not a long abandonment. He goes in fingers first, but only to position himself, and he's deep inside right away. Johnny groans, and again as Brian sinks his upper body on top of his. Arms wrapped around him, embracing him: the gay missionary position. Johnny might be reading too much into this.

His dick is taking a break, as well it should after coming that hard twice, and there's a purity to being fucked without that distraction. Like he's been lit up all the way into his belly, a heavy, steady buzz of pleasure. It's intense and hot but relaxing, somehow, and he thinks, if this is what he's missing by never tiring his dick out beforehand, he ought to do things Brian's way more often. Brian takes his sweet time getting off, and his short, low moan signals the sad end of the carousel ride.

Brian throws out his condom and settles back onto the bed, pulling his knees in towards his chest. "Your turn," Johnny teases.

"Are you hungry?" Brian says.

"I had a buttload of yakitori at the reception," Johnny says. "But yeah, it's the off-season, sure. I could eat." The problem with this is, the restaurants in the hotel are super-expensive, and the hotel itself is in, like, the only part of Tokyo that isn't packed with tiny restaurants stacked one on top of the other. That's actually a useful excuse: Johnny doesn't know what he'd say if he tried to go out on a date with Brian. They decide to settle for the convenience store that's basically attached to the hotel. Brian digs through a pile of what is probably dirty laundry and puts on a pair of jeans and a long-sleeved t-shirt. Johnny leaves his jacket and tie behind and wears his shirt tails-out. They look like a pair of mismatched strangers who met in an elevator and hit the emergency stop button so they could fuck in there before never seeing each other again.

Japanese convenience stores are kind of like Candy Land. Basically, the best strategy is to buy a bunch of stuff, eat what tastes good, and memorize the gross things so you can tell your American friends stories about food you accidentally ate in Japan. Some things are easy to agree on: "gourmet" Doritos, the little cookies shaped like mushrooms, "limited edition" cherry Kit Kats, a bag of crunchy spicy ramen noodle things, three flavors of Pocky plus one of the knockoff inside-out kind. At this point, they've split up so Brian can see if the store has those ice cream waffle things (he is _very_ excited about the ice cream waffles) and Johnny can grab some iced green tea and C.C. Lemon to wash everything down with. They haven't discussed it, but Johnny's pretty sure Brian's philosophy is the same as his: if they're going to ignore their diets, they're going to ignore them all the way.

It has occurred to Johnny that there might be other skaters on a late-night junk food run, but it has somehow escaped him that there might be fans hanging around a convenience store at one in the morning to see if any skaters happen by. But of course there are, a pack of five high school girls in uniform, standing behind Johnny and giggling while he compares tea bottles. He turns around and waves. The girls smile nervously for a minute, and then one of them -- the brave one or the one who's getting the best grade in English -- says, "Can you write autograph, please?" She giggles. Her friends giggle. Johnny digs around in his pockets. He doesn't have a pen; he's amazed he remembered his wallet. 

But one of the girls has one, obviously, and they all have little notebooks already half full of skaters' signatures. They probably already have his, with all the times he's signed his name this week, but it's worth doing it again because this one, they'll all remember. When he's gotten through the notebooks and they're taking out their phones so they can take pictures, Johnny says, "Wait, I should bring my friend over here." He looks up and emphatically beckons Brian, who seems to be assessing whether he can squeeze himself into the ice cream freezer. Brian rolls his eyes but saunters over, waffle ice cream in hand. The girls squeal when they see who it is, and there's another round of autographs and about a million camera-phone pictures, and Johnny and Brian are both trying to be cool about it but the fact is, Japanese teenagers are the best fans in the world, and admiration is one of the greatest pleasures, after sex and chocolate.

The girls send them off after adding a bunch of things to their basket, all of which are described as "very delicious Japanese snacks." Johnny and Brian split the tab fifty-fifty, as you always should on a first date. When they get back to the hotel room, Brian drops the bag of junk food on the desk and they race to get undressed and tackle each other onto the bed. Johnny winds up on top of Brian, kissing him hard, Brian's legs in the air, and he thinks he should go where he's so clearly wanted. 

Brian is starting to run out of condoms. Johnny rips open the second-to-last unflavored one, puts it on, lubes them both up. It's hard to fuck and kiss at the same time, but he's not the only one who's getting into the challenge. The tangle of limbs and their general fatigue make it a long, slow fuck, and their tongues are messy, their lips missing each other. Brian's got his own dick in his hand, stroking in time with Johnny's hips, and he comes on Johnny's chest before Johnny's quite finished. Johnny tries to catch up, but Brian says, "No, take your time." But it feels good to slam into him rough and fast. Johnny's having trouble saying that, but Brian figures it out and gets into it, pulling Johnny's ass tighter into him, not rushing him, just making it easier to get off one more time.

Maybe, Johnny muses as he tosses away condom number three and fishes one of the boxes of Pocky out of the convenience store bag, maybe it's not that either of them are all that good, but that they're good together. And what a scary thought that is.

"Come here," Brian says. "You have, um... _sperme_ on you."

"Oh, God, that's gross, I forgot," Johnny says.

"You're already forgetting me?" Brian says.

"No, just your spunk."

"Maybe we should do this more often," Brian says in French. He might be hoping that Johnny won't understand him.

" _Et peut-être pas,_ " Johnny says, wiping himself off. 

Brian doesn't answer. Johnny's been a little meaner than he meant to be. Even if Brian was expecting to be rejected, Johnny's terse finality can't have been easy to hear. Johnny sits on the end of the bed, trying not to get Pocky crumbs everywhere. Brian gets up and finds his ice cream. A miracle of food science, it hasn't melted yet, although a trickle of vanilla runs down his arm when he bites into it. He closes his eyes and smiles orgasmically, licking his lips. "I haven't eaten ice cream in a long time," he says. "In a year or more." 

"Me neither," Johnny says, switching to English. That seems like the easiest thing to do: everybody in their first language. "I'm more into cookies. And cake. And, like, anything not nailed down. I gained, like, ten kilos last summer."

"I wish I'd done that," Brian says. "Maybe I will this time. I'll spend the summer playing video games and eating ice cream."

"Those are my plans for 2010," Johnny says. "This year, I'm staying on my diet."

"Then I'll meet you in the ice cream shop in three years," Brian says. He polishes off his ice cream waffle. "Are those good? Your cookies."

"Want one?" Johnny says. He gets up, pulls one out of the box, and places its chocolate tip on Brian's tongue, then slides it back into Brian's mouth as far as it will go. Brian pulls it back out slowly from between his lips, then nips the end off. Johnny says, "How long do you want me to stay?"

"The bed is very hard," Brian says. "I hoped I would have someone soft to sleep on top of."

Johnny embraces him, putting the Pocky box down behind him. He wraps his leg around Brian's to bring him closer. Brian swallows the last of his cookie and tangles his hands in Johnny's hair, kissing him hard and long. His lips are fearless now, cold and chocolate-flavored, decadent. They could keep kissing if they wanted to, keep on and not stop, continue it with phone calls, e-mails, the occasional transatlantic flight. But it wouldn't last, and each kiss makes that clearer. Their separation maintains their intimacy. "You know it wouldn't work," Johnny says. "Us."

"I know," Brian says.

"Do you still want me to stay the night?" Johnny says.

Brian kisses him quickly. It feels like a kiss goodbye, and Johnny steels himself for the answer. But Brian says, "Yes."

"Good," Johnny says. "I'm not ready to go."

**4\. so maybe we're a bliss of another kind**

Meryl is dumping sugar into her coffee. "Let's go do karaoke after the team party," Charlie said last night, taking credit for the idea although it was surely Ben's. Ben is the idea man. Charlie just wants to be Ben when he grows up. Not that this hasn't been going on for years now, but it's gotten a thousand times worse since Nationals. Charlie has more or less stapled himself to Ben's side. He would probably crawl under the table and suck Ben's dick right now if Ben asked him to. Fortunately for the mothers of the international figure skating community, all Ben wants is someone to laugh at his jokes. Which Charlie is doing, loudly. Meryl squeezes her eyes shut and burns her tongue on her coffee. "Jesus," she mutters.

"Hey, it's not our fault you had -- how many of those pink things did you have?" Charlie says.

"Two," Meryl says. Japanese coffee tastes like asphalt, and there's no such thing as Splenda here. Real sugar has a weird aftertaste.

"She's a small girl," Charlie informs the table.

"Two pink ones," Meryl says. "Two purple, two blue, one orange, and one green." Some people's memories get fuzzy when they're drunk, but not Meryl's. No loss of coordination, either. What she does get is giggly, fearless, shameless, and fiercely competitive. Eight drinks means she will have won something at her first senior Worlds, even if it's only the gold medal for Ladies' Drinking. And possibly Best Britney Impersonation, although she's pretending to have forgotten that.

Tessa, who was down after four green ones, has not even shown up for breakfast. Tanith, who looks supermodel-flawless despite six rainbow-colored cocktails, is putting away a bowl of granola and yogurt like her stomach is made of steel. Joannie, Meryl's toughest competitor, made it to seven and looks pretty much like Meryl feels, nursing her cup of bad coffee on the other side of the room. The off-season has officially begun.

The guys, who for all of their ludicrousness managed to keep from drinking themselves sick last night, are dealing with the arrival of spring by eating like they're about to hibernate. Charlie's eaten about twenty strips of bacon. Meryl gives him a scolding look when he gets up for thirds, and he says, "What? It's not like you have to lift me."

"I could lift you if you ate less bacon," Meryl says.

"I _could_ give you dirty looks for reading at the breakfast table," Charlie says. "I just want to note, I am not doing that."

"I have a paper due," she says. It's true, and also _The Importance of Being Earnest_ is more interesting than Ben's monologue about _Thundercats_. Meryl's been around skaters too much lately. She misses school, being around people who are smarter than she is.

She's having trouble concentrating on her book, so she's using it as a screen to peer over and watch the door. If she concentrates, she can almost tune out her friends. She doesn't know who she's watching for: almost everyone's already here. It's down to the people who can't hold their hangovers and the people who hooked up last night. Jeff and Chris, who seem to fall into both categories, stumbling towards the buffet with sunglasses on and not bothering with the traditional seven minutes between entrances by gay lovers. The new men's world champion, who must be seven minutes ahead of somebody if he's got that kind of smile on his face. And sure enough, with uncharacteristic precision or totally characteristic sarcasm, Johnny Weir arrives for breakfast, as if still spitting canary feathers out of his mouth.

"I was wondering if they were going to get around to it this year," Ben says.

Tanith glares at him nastily, like he's crossed a line. Charlie laughs like he knows what the hell Ben is talking about. "It's an annual thing?" Meryl says over her book.

"More or less," Ben says. "I can't believe you guys didn't know."

"I try to think about Weir's sex life as little as possible," Evan says, ostentatiously shifting closer to Tanith and squeezing her hand.

Johnny seems willing to make that easy, taking his coffee and his plate of breakfast meat to a table of Russians. But the table is full, and although they try to make room for him, they can't fit another chair. Charlie waves and says, "Hey, there's a chair over here," and when Johnny shrugs a no thanks Ben rolls his eyes and beckons him over. Evan is scowling; Tanith is fidgeting in her seat. Meryl is holding her head and trying to read.

"Are you okay, honey?" Johnny says, and it takes Meryl a second to realize he's talking to her.

"I won the drinking contest," Meryl says.

"Here, I have some Motrin," Johnny says. She was going to stick it out, but he's already digging around in his bag and she thinks there might be some kind of cosmic penalty for saying no to him.

"You missed an _outstanding_ night of karaoke," Ben says to Johnny. Meryl's pretty sure there's a secret message encoded in the comment.

"Yeah, well, you missed an outstanding night of anal sex." Johnny hands his bottle of Motrin to Meryl. "Have as many as you want." She takes two and chases them with coffee. Evan is telling Tanith something about his iPod, in the way people do when they want to make sure everyone nearby notices. Meryl pretends that the Motrin is kicking in already and returns to her book.

She tolerates a couple of minutes of Johnny reading over her shoulder before she closes her book and rubs her temples. "Oh, I thought that was what it was," Johnny says. "I read that a couple of summers ago on the tour bus."

"I have to read it for my English class," Meryl says. "I mean, not that I don't like it, but I never would have -- okay, I know you're trying to be nice and stuff, but --"

"I can talk about the great classics of literature or I can talk about Evan's iPod," Johnny says. "Believe me, I'm making my choice."

She laughs. "So okay, is it just me, or are the two guys, like --"

"Courting the rich, pretty girls so they can sneak out to the countryside and --"

"Go _Bunburying_ ," Meryl finishes.

"Oh my God, that's _it_ ," Evan says, shooting up from his seat.

"What?" Johnny says. "We were talking about the book she's reading for school."

"Yeah, whatever, I'm _sure_ she's reading gay porn for school," Evan says.

"You _would_ have never heard of Oscar Wilde," Johnny says. "Or is that another thing you're just pretending?"

Evan stands there with his hands on the back of his chair. His mouth is open, but there's no comeback coming out of it. Tanith pats his hand and says, "Sweetie, do you want to go somewhere?"

"Yeah," Evan says. "I want to go to the gala rehearsal."

"We should," Tanith says to Ben. "We should get going."

Ben blinks a reluctant goodbye to the remains of his breakfast. "Yeah."

"Leaving us losers alone?" Charlie says.

"Sorry," Ben says. "But I'll see you there later, right?"

"Yep," Charlie says.

There's a silence, like Meryl and Johnny are supposed to chime in. "I don't know," Meryl says. "I have a lot of homework."

"I'm just cutting out to go shopping," Johnny says.

"See?" Meryl says. "I'm normal."

"You're skipping the gala to read. That's not normal," Charlie says. "You could at least go sightseeing or something."

Meryl gnaws her lip. She's torn between responsibility and the strange, beautiful city she hasn't had time to explore.

"My mom wanted to go to the park with the cherry trees," Johnny says. "You could come with." Meryl doesn't know him well enough to explain how helpful he's not being.

"Thanks, but I really need to --"

"Mer," Charlie says. "If you spend the afternoon in this hotel studying, I swear to God I will drop you on your head and make it look like an accident."

"Okay," she says. "Okay, I'll... go talk to my mom."

Her mom is eager to see the cherry trees, as a matter of fact, and when Meryl mentions Johnny, Mrs. Weir makes a point of inviting them along. They're, like, a whole family of not helpful. Mrs. Weir says something about how the only thing more boring than a gala is a gala your kid isn't in, and Meryl sneaks away while the table of parents is laughing. 

She's glad to see her mom making friends. Her mom has sat nervously with Charlie's mom at a lot of competitions, avoiding the scary-intense skating parents. When Meryl was about ten, her mom rented _Gypsy_ and said, "If I ever start acting like that, you are to start carpooling to competitions with the Whites." Ever since, she's made a habit of writing "Sing out, Louise!" on cute stationery and sticking the notes in Meryl's bag so she'll find them right before she skates. It's something not even Charlie knows about.

By the time they gather in the lobby for their sightseeing trip, the posse of moms has grown to six, plus one dad. It feels like Meryl and Johnny are the chaperones. Meryl is disappointed that the subway isn't as crowded as it was in pictures she's seen, but the park makes up for it. The cherry trees are beautiful, more pink than Meryl has ever seen at once (and she's been in a few ice shows). The stream that runs through the park is clogged with petals, and every inch of lawn is buried under picnic blankets. "Glad you took the day off?" Johnny says.

"Yeah," Meryl says.

They get sushi for lunch, at a restaurant where the sushi travels around the room on a long conveyor belt. While they eat, the moms unfold a map and plan a tour of the city. It involves a lot of temples and historic neighborhoods. "You're _dying_ to pull that book out, aren't you?" Johnny says.

"It's... I mean, I don't want to complain," Meryl says, keeping her voice low so she won't make the moms feel guilty. "But it's a lot of walking, and I've been skating all week."

"Not a lot of shopping where they want to go, either," Johnny says. "I mean, it's whatever they want to do, we are clearly outnumbered, but."

"You could ask your mom," Meryl says.

"Yeah, 'Mommy, can I please go run up my credit card debt?'"

"Oh, well. The temples are pretty," Meryl says. She points at something with tentacles. "I dare you to eat that."

Johnny takes the plate, swishes one of the pieces of sushi in soy sauce, and sticks the whole thing in his mouth. It's chewy, apparently, because he's working hard at it. He points at the other piece, makes the thumbs-up sign, and nods at her. She has to bite it in half, so it goes all over the place, and there's too much wasabi and it's _really_ chewy, and that's when Johnny's mom turns to them and says, "Honey, I know you wanted to hit Harajuku. Why don't you two go off together?" Johnny swallows and accepts for both of them. Meryl's mouth is too full of sushi for her to speak, but she smiles broadly. She'd been planning on researching Harajuku subcultures for her contemporary cultural anthropology class. This will totally be homework.

Meryl's mom misreads the situation and tries to rescue her, leading her over to a soft-serve ice cream machine for a private conversation. "I'm not sure how I feel about you going off in a strange city with a boy you hardly know."

"I know him," Meryl says. "Really, Mom. What's he going to do?"

"Well, I think he likes you, for one thing."

"We're not in seventh grade, it doesn't really work like that anymore," Meryl says. She lowers her voice to a whisper, because her mom's reaction suggests that she is somehow missing this. "And also? Mom. _Gay._ "

"You shouldn't make snap judgments about people," Meryl's mom says.

There is not enough time to explain all the ways she knows more than she wants to about Johnny's personal life. "Mom. I feel safe. It's fine. Please."

Meryl's mom puts her hands on Meryl's shoulders. "I'm sorry," she says. "Sometimes I forget you're all grown up." She kisses Meryl's cheek, and they go back to the sushi counter. 

Johnny has been stockpiling things that he wants to make Meryl eat. They end up malingering for a while after the moms leave. "So," he says. "I have a question for you."

"Is it multiple choice?"

"Fill in the blanks," Johnny says. "Ben is to Charlie as blank is to blank."

Meryl laughs. "I don't know. As white is to rice?"

"No, but they aren't actually --"

Meryl shakes her head. "Charlie would," she says. "I don't think Ben will."

"Yeah, Ben's one of the straightest people I know in this sport," Johnny says. "Like, to the point where he's comfortable policing other people's homophobia."

"Which is a good thing," Meryl says. "Because the two of them would not be, you know. Smart."

"Totally." He cocks his head to the side. "Charlie would?"

"Yeah. I mean, unless he left that all behind when we moved up from juniors."

"Just what the world needs," Johnny says. "More cute, charming bisexuals."

"I'll keep him in line."

"I'm holding you to that," Johnny says.

"I _will_ ," Meryl says. "Okay. I have a question for _you_. What crawled up Evan's butt and died?"

Johnny snickers. "More like, what hasn't."

"No, really, but --"

"I don't know," Johnny says. "We used to be friends. Like all along, we had this agreement, we'd leave it on the ice. And then all of a sudden he gets together with Tanith and there are _sides_. And he's mad that everyone didn't automatically take his."

"Because they're your friends too," Meryl says.

"Or something," Johnny says. "I don't know what they are. But they're not my enemies. Anyway. We should pay for all this and get going."

They do, and then they spend an hour getting lost on the subway before they finally, accidentally, find Harajuku station. The Gothic Lolita girls really are everywhere, but the funny part is, a lot of them recognize Johnny. A few of them even recognize Meryl from TV, especially once Johnny explains who she is. "She's an ice skater too," Johnny says patiently. "Ice dance. Seventh place. Better than me." Meryl hopes it's okay if the photos she puts in her anthropology paper have her and Johnny in them.

"Is he your boyfriend?" a girl in an elaborate black lace pinafore asks, pronouncing each word carefully. 

Meryl laughs. "No. He's my friend." She wonders if they look like something else if you don't know the context, if it's somehow not obvious enough what he is. 

Maybe her mom is right, and she shouldn't judge. So many times, she's assumed guys were just being nice, only to have her friends tease her for leading them on and turning them down. She never knows they're flirting until it's too late. Still, it's ridiculous to think that's what's happening now. Not three hours earlier, this same guy came stumbling into breakfast bragging about spending his night in another guy's hotel room. And Johnny Weir is very low on the list of men's skaters likely to be mistaken for heterosexuals.

They break free of the fans and make their way down Harajuku's main thoroughfare. Johnny says, "The first time I was here, all the really edgy stores were right along this strip. Now it's all the top international designers for three times the price." He leads her into an alley lined with low-roofed boutiques, towards a narrower, funkier variation on the main drag, and starts pulling her into shops. "It's an entire country of short, skinny people," he says. "Everything fits. It's paradise."

She looks around. It's not really her style. "I don't know," she says. "Maybe we should go to some of the men's stores first, and then come back for me if we have time."

He looks like he's trying not to be disappointed in her. "All right." But once he's surrounded by men's clothes, he lights back up. She turns out to be pretty useful in an advisory capacity, letting him know which jeans flatter his skater's butt and which make him look like he's been dipping into the Ho-Hos. He starts to talk about construction and design, then backs off from it like he fears he's boring her.

"No, keep going, I want to know," she says. She's going to forget everything she learns about Japanese fashion by the time the sun goes down, but it's been a week since she's talked to anyone who's knowledgeable about anything other than skating -- not just vaguely educated but really passionate. He likes to talk, once you get him started. And Meryl likes to listen.

But he keeps slowing down when they pass the women's clothes, and he must be waiting for her to see something she likes. There's so much here, she can't tell the difference. To humor him, she pauses at a random store and browses it, looking at clothes without seeing them. She pulls a dress off the rack without checking the size and holds it up in front of her. The fabric clings to her body like it's begging her to take it home to America. "Ooh, you should try it on," Johnny coos, and she can't tell if he actually likes it or if he's encouraging her to try something, anything.

The salesgirl leads her to a dressing room. Johnny waits on the other side of the curtain. Meryl takes off her jeans and sweater and puts the dress on before she looks at it. It's a black cotton sundress with a ruffled skirt and narrow straps made of pastel ribbon tied in bows. It feels like a costume, like something a different kind of girl would wear. She considers taking it off and telling Johnny it didn't work out, but he'll just spend the rest of the afternoon trying to find her something that does. So she puts her shoes on and ventures past the curtain.

He sizes her up, speechless for a moment. "That's perfect," he says. "You should get it."

"Where would I wear it?" she says.

"I don't know," he says. "Anywhere. Wear it to class. Tell people you got it in Japan."

"I'd _have_ to," she says.

He's waiting for her to do something, but she can't figure him out. He says, "Is it expensive?"

"I don't know," she says. "I didn't look."

"Good girl," he says. And he's giving her that look again, the look that makes her think her mom and the Gothic Lolita fans are on to something. Or maybe it's her, she's the one feeling something, and she's trying to convince herself that he's the problem. Typical, protecting herself by getting a crush on the impossible guy. Or telling herself that he's impossible because it's easier than trusting what she has seen so many times, that people fall in love with people and not with bodies, that everyone adapts, makes exceptions. 

She gathers her courage into her fists and stands on her toes to kiss him, quickly on the lips like she's a kindergartener about to run giggling to the other end of the playground. He staggers backward and shakes his head. But he collects himself and closes the distance between them. He kisses her back solidly and studiously. It's possible he's never kissed a girl before. With her eyes closed, he's not that different from any of the other boys who have kissed her. 

He lifts his lips away from hers and trails his fingertips down her face. "It's not happening, is it?" she says.

He shakes his head. "It would have been fun, though, right?"

She smiles but doesn't answer him. "I'm going to put my real clothes back on," she says. Putting the dress on its hanger, she feels the same mixture of relief and regret as when her skating costumes go back in the garment bag. Time to stop playing make-believe. 

"What are you doing?" he says when she takes the dress to the rack where she found it.

"Putting this back," she says. He intercepts her, sweeps the dress out of her hands, and glides toward the cashier like he's wearing skates. "What are you doing?" she says.

"Buying you a dress," he says. There is no way she is going to talk him out of it. The salesgirl folds the dress elaborately, wraps it in tissue paper, and drops it in a bag. It's hers now; it's his. 

**5\. running through the underworld into your room**

Brian watches the deep bathtub fill with water and contemplates the buttons on his hotel room toilet. Two of them are ambiguous illustrations of spraying water and body parts that might be mistakenly translated as "bidet," when what they really mean is, "very cold water sprayed very hard, five or ten centimeters from where it might be useful." The other, larger button has musical notes on it, and that's the one that really frightens him. When one presses it, it makes a flushing noise but does not flush the toilet. What purpose could this serve? The Japanese have not offered him an explanation. He presses the button, and the toilet roars. He laughs, tells himself to grow up, and presses the button again. The small pleasures of travel.

Because he won, he'll be spending another week in Japan, touring. He hates to lose the week of training, but it was explained to him that declining the offer would be an insult. He's run out of clothes. His mom is trying to find a next-day laundry service or else a launderette before she returns to Poitiers. She's leaving tomorrow, leaving him alone in Osaka, Fukuoka, Nagoya, Nagano, Sendai, Sapporo. He'll see all of Japan from the window of a bullet train. It will be lonely, but that's nothing new for him. He'd planned to be done with sex for the rest of the year, to concentrate on skating, and it doesn't look like the tour will interfere with that. His companions will be mostly Japanese jailbait, more exciting as fantasies than as giggling, inept realities. Stéph, he's had and won't have again; Daisuke might be interesting or might not be worth the effort. Brian will see how bored he gets: whether a night of minimal conversation will put other things out of his mind or only make him long for them more deeply.

The bath is full. Brian climbs in and lets gravity take over. The water turns his skin red in an instant, but he'd rather endure it than run cold water. He's trying to teach himself immunity to pain, but his body is not cooperating. It insists on feeling, hurting, dwelling on its wounds.

There are ways of controlling oneself. He thinks, three or four times a year, they could manage it. He would be willing to meet Johnny in Paris; he'd like to see the American countryside, if such a thing exists, or New York City, failing that. They would only do what they could arrange. No phone calls in between, if those would make it too much like a relationship. Brian believes they both have enough restraint and self-discipline for this. Maybe this is where Johnny disagrees. But it's hard to say: his rejection was so vague. Brian replays it in his mind, the "And maybe not" and the laugh afterward. Not a dismissive laugh but sad in a way, wishful. Wanting to accept but not trusting himself.

Brian can understand why Johnny doesn't trust him, either. He's accumulated a reputation, and a fair one, he supposes, since it's reasonable enough to assume that a man who has casual sex two nights in a row maintains that pace throughout the year, rather than self-imposing an asceticism that he suspends annually at Worlds between the men's free skate and the gala. According to Alban, this year's rumor is that after the medal ceremony, he picked up a trio of teenage Japanese fans outside the hotel and threw himself a victory party. It would disappoint some people if they found out that Brian spent most of that evening playing World Cup Football on Alban's new Wii. When he's disappointed in himself, he doesn't trust himself with lovers. And the win didn't mean so much, knowing he'd skated below his abilities. He's embarrassed that he chose safety over perfection. The quad salchow would have been clean.

The bathwater is starting to cool, and his back is cramping. He gets out, dripping water all over the floor, but he'd rather let it evaporate off his skin than dry himself. He makes a trail of wet footprints to the bed and lies down on his back. There's no reason for him to be so tired. 

Maybe after they both retire, maybe then they can find a better way to be in love with each other. If Johnny is even in love with him in the first place. Brian would rather not be in love at all; he would rather devote all of his mind and body to skating. But it's too late for that. 

Johnny never admitted to liking him, but Brian is sure he does. He closes his eyes and imagines a man who will say flattering things about him before going down on him. Or a woman, it could be a woman: that ice dancer has a hidden talent. But in his fantasy, it's not her. Nor is it Johnny. It's someone with no face, someone perfect. 

The papaya-flavored lube is still on the bedside table. He never got around to using it on Johnny. They bought enough sweets at the convenience store. But now is a good time for it, and the room fills with its bright, exotic scent as he pours it into his hand. He doesn't need the fantasy anymore. He has the cool spring air across his damp skin, the slickness and rich smell of his hands, the quiet of late afternoon. He has no lover more reliable than his hand, and it never asks him to prove anything. He comes easily and peacefully, not having to force himself to slow down. 

He lies on the bed for a minute, in blissful post-orgasmic clarity. He needs to approach Johnny like a difficult jump. Giving up on the first try isn't acceptable. A fall is an opportunity to assess what's gone wrong, to adjust one's position and one's speed until the jump is successful. Brian knows that people aren't always the same way: sometimes persistence only reinforces their resolve. But that rejection was so ambiguous in the first place, and Johnny's French is full of mistakes. It could have been a mistake altogether. Johnny will forgive him for interpreting it as one.

He gets up, wipes off his stomach, and puts some clothes on. He could lie here naked all night, but he needs to go out and spend time with other people. Kiss fans and sign autographs, if nothing else. Take his mother out to dinner. He has one more night before Johnny returns to America. 

On the dresser, there's still a plastic bag half full of junk food from the convenience store. Brian takes out the box of mushroom-shaped cookies and pops one into his mouth. It's cheap chocolate and too sweet. He closes his eyes and lets it melt on his tongue. He's still in Tokyo, still indulging.

There's a hospitality lounge on the third floor. A lot of skaters are milling around, drinking the free tea, finding out where everyone else is going and trying to get invited along. Brian never expects to be invited anywhere; he almost hopes no one does, because he feels pressure to accept. He's never happy in that kind of big social group. He'd rather talk to people one at a time than try to keep up with six or seven. If that means he's aloof, well, there are worse things to be.

For instance, he could be the guy who threw away his friendly reputation, getting defensive over a girl. Brian almost feels guilty, but he reminds himself how easy it would have been for Tanith to turn him down. Her dance partner didn't have any trouble. The problem is between Evan and Tanith; if Brian hadn't stepped in, someone else would have done it. "Hi," Brian says to him. Hands in his pockets, casual.

"Oh," Evan says with a forced smile. "Hi. Congratulations."

"Thank you," Brian says.

"So you're... doing the sushi thing? Or --"

"I don't know," Brian says. "It depends on -- Have you seen Johnny?"

"Weir?" Evan shrugs. "I think he went shopping with Meryl. They're probably not back yet."

Brian's disappointed that Johnny didn't go to the gala, although he hadn't expected it. What's more disappointing is that Johnny is off having fun and will probably go right to dinner. At least he's with a girl. Although Brian should know better than to jump to even that conclusion. "Oh, he -- he left something in my room," Brian says.

"I can call him," Evan says. "I mean, if it's important."

"You have his phone number?" Brian says.

"Sure," Evan says. "We all exchanged them after the tour last summer."

"Would you... give it to me?" 

"Oh my God, he'd _kill_ me." Evan grins. "Absolutely." He takes his phone out of his pocket and presses buttons. "I don't have his home phone anymore, just his cell."

"That's fine," Brian says. He takes out his own phone and copies the number into his address book. He doesn't have to use it. But he's pleased to have it and the option of calling.

"That's going to be one hell of an expensive phone call," Evan says.

"I'm paying for fucking up the first time," Brian says. "So. Thank you." He pats Evan's arm, and Evan stiffens and backs away. "Oh, _don't_ ," Brian says.

"Don't come on to me, and I won't," Evan says.

"I wasn't," Brian says. 

"Sure."

"Listen to me," Brian says. "There is one thing that doesn't interest me, and it is other bisexual men. I'd rather masturbate. It's the same thing, only without the, uh, pissing contest."

Evan chews his lip for a moment, then bursts into laughter. "There's a story I'm going to have to tell you sometime, dude."

"Who?" Brian says.

"Some other time," Evan says. He clucks his tongue. "Walls have ears. Anyway. People are probably getting sushi tonight. Like, certain people might be persuaded to go, and stuff. So you should, like --"

"Thank you," Brian says. "I will... think about it."

"Don't think, dude," Evan says. "Do it."

Brian smiles and sidles away. Maybe he'll go after all. It's better than feeling guilty and angry at himself. The new season starts tomorrow: no record, no past, everything to prove again. And no one has said he has to ring it in alone.


End file.
